Fixing Pepper
by Eris Dea Disaccordo
Summary: [An Iron Man 3 tagfic that falls inside The Monkey Wrench series.] "As you know," he begins, "I've been trying to reverse engineer the process they did to make you," he gestures to her abstractly, "hot. Hotter," he amends when her eyebrows twitch, "'cause you were already hot and of course you were, you're perfect—I told them that, you know?" "Tony." "Yes?" "Move on."
1. Chapter 1

_This is a tag to the Iron Man 3 movie that falls within my own Monkey Wrench Avengers series. I don't own any of The Avengers or Iron Man characters included in the story.  
_

* * *

"Complicated—what do you mean 'complicated?'" Pepper steps into the workshop with her head tilted to the side, an adorable frown on her face as her ponytail swishes to the side just as adorably and Tony wishes Bruce hadn't said his "Tony, this whole thing has gotten way too complicated," spiel out loud. Or that she hadn't walked into the room while said spiel was happening.

Either would do.

"Um—"

"It's nothing, Pep," Tony cuts in before Bruce could worry her, because she already worries about the small things and this was a pretty big thing to add to her plate. "I've got it covered."

She folds her arms and gives him The Look. Tony does _not_ whimper.

And even if he did, it would be a manly—a _very_ manly—sounding whimper.

"Okay, okay, okay, I'll tell you! Geez," he huffs, trying to take back control of the (one-sided) conversation. He clears his throat. "As you know," he begins, "I've been trying to reverse engineer the process they did to make you," he gestures to her abstractly, "hot. Hotter," he amends when her eyebrows twitch, "'cause you were already hot and of course you were, you're perfect—I told them that, you know? That they didn't need to add anything 'cause you were already," he clears his throat again and _doesn't_ roll his eyes when Bruce let out a snicker at his behalf, "perfect."

"Tony."

"Yes?"

"Move on."

"Okay, okay," he grumbles. "Pushy." This time, Pepper clears her throat, and he raises his hands. "Moving on," he acquiesces. "So anyway, reverse engineering, yada-yada-yada—" He paused to take a deep breath. "Okay. Come here, Pep, take a look at this," he tells her, gesturing to the panel next to him and Bruce.

"Oh, wow," she breathes, taking in the glimmering red-and-orange DNA model. "What is that?"

"That," he says, "is you." She shoots him a questioning look. "Your DNA model," he clarifies. "Jarvis, bring up the original model." Beside the fiery pattern, an ordinary DNA model comes up. "This was you before," Tony says, pointing to the newly-emerged model, then points to the glimmering one. "This is you after."

"Pepper," Bruce speaks up, _hallelujah-amen_, "do you understand what the Extremis serum does?"

"It turns me into a smaller, fiery version of the Other Guy," Pepper replies bluntly, which makes Bruce smile crookedly in understanding. Tony holds back an amused snort.

"Yes, basically," Bruce nods. "In a way, the Extremis serum isn't all that different from the Super Soldier serum. It gives you superhuman strength, reflexes, eyesight, and don't think I don't know you only came down because you could hear us from upstairs." Pepper blushes, her cheeks tingeing pink before glowing red and orange. Jesus, that was both sexy and terrifying at the same time. "But the key difference between the Super Soldier and Extremis serums is that Extremis lets you regenerate injuries. The…the Other Guy," he murmurs in a lower tone, as if the very words would summon his meaner, greener alter ego, "is invincible, and he can't be hurt, but if I lose a limb, I can't grow that back."

"Which is why he instantly turns into the Hulk whenever imminent danger is about," Tony cuts in.

"Yes, that," his science-loving friend says, and it's a point of pride for Tony that Bruce's not as uncomfortable talking about The Hulk's abilities with him and Pepper compared to, oh let's say, _SHIELD_. "But you," Bruce adds, pointing to Pepper, "can."

"Wait," Pepper raises her hands, closing her eyes and shaking her head as she wraps her mind around what he's saying. "Are you…" she huffs and opens her eyes to glare at Tony, "are you trying to _convince me_ to keep_ this?_" Her beautiful blue eyes start shining with an inner red-orange light as she waves her fire-glowing hands to emphasize her point. "Because that's not even a choice, Tony—of course I want it out of me! Jesus, what if I set you on fire while we're sleeping?"

"Pep, I know it sounds scary—"

"_Scary?_"

"Stop!" Bruce puts a hand on his shoulder. "Tony, not right now, okay? Pepper needs to hear _all _her options, and you don't have to decide now," he adds, looking at Pepper now. "Listen, Pepper. We can fix you both ways—in overcoming the…_heating problem_, as Tony calls it—"

"I think it's an apt description," Tony defends.

"—and also in reverse engineering the process, so that we can take it out of you."

"Reverse it," Pepper says instantly.

"Okay," Bruce nods. "We'll do that."

"But not right now," Tony adds.

"Excuse me?" Pepper splutters.

"Smooth," Bruce mutters.

With Pepper's orange-eyed glare focused on him, Tony flounders.

"Tony, just tell her," Bruce says patiently.

His gut clenches in rebellion at the thought. "I—" He shuts his eyes and stops shaking his head unconsciously. "Pepper, sit down." With an impatient sigh, Pepper obeys, and Bruce—the traitor—steers him towards her and forces him to sit beside her.

"Thank you, Bruce."

"Don't thank me yet," he warns her, moving to the door. "I'll be upstairs when you're done," the scientist says, and Tony watches his salvation abandon him to his fiery-tempered (pun totally intended) girlfriend.

"Tony, what's going on?" Pepper demands as soon as Bruce was out of sight.

He swallows heavily. "Pep, I love you."

The orange flare dissipates, letting him see those lovely clear blue eyes of hers. "I love you too, Tony," she nods, taking his hand gingerly until he entwines their fingers together, holding her hand firmly. "Look, I know that you want to keep me safe, and that the whole regenerating thing I have probably feels like a godsend to you or—"

"What? No, no, no, Pep, I'm not even— That's not what I—" He huffs. "I want what you want," he tells her. "Yeah, it's relieving to know that you'll never lose a finger or an eye but Pep, you'll still be killable. I know, because I've killed people who had your abilities." He looks her in the eye. "_I_ found a way. That means that one day, someone will figure it out too, and you having these powers makes you a target. For everyone."

Pepper—bless her—understands what he's not saying. "You're worried SHIELD will find out," she murmurs.

"Yes," he exhales, his mind returning to that moment when an arrow killed someone he knew was only trying to help. "I know Fury, Pep. I know what he's capable of. He'll say it's for the greater good and wear a smile on his face while he has you locked away to be his lab rat to recreate the Extremis serum and…no," he tightens his grip on her hand. "I refuse to put that possibility in your future."

"So why did you even bother trying to fix the…overheating problem?" Pepper asks, diving right for the heart of the matter. "I mean, I understand you're giving me options but Tony, you _know_ I want this _gone_."

"Pep…" Tony swallows heavily and gives her a look of unease. "Pep, until I ran the test I didn't know I wanted it. Didn't know I… But I want you to know that…that if I was going to have one, I'd never want it with anyone else but you. I mean, I'll understand if it's too much for you right now, but I really doubt that you'll…" His throat catches on the next word, because until that moment, he's never realized how ugly a word could be. "I mean, not that you wouldn't want to, but yeah, this is your choice, and if so then maybe we don't have the same wants after all, but this is your choice, Pep—"

"Tony, stop. Stop!" Pepper squeezes his hand a little too tightly. "What are you talking about? What choice? What…" She shakes her head jerkily. "What are you talking about?"

"Jesus, Tony, just tell her already!" Bruce's voice drifts down the stairwell, making him chuckle anxiously.

Pepper gives him an expectant look. "Yeah, Tony, just tell me. Please. I can take it," she says gently. "Is the procedure risky or deadly or something?"

"Yes," he replies, feeling his palms start to sweat. "All those things." Her expression droops, which doesn't fail to trigger his guilt. "Look, I…" He sighs. "I found something that…complicated our options."

"Okay," she nods, visibly bracing herself. "What's complicating this?"

He inhales deeply. "The baby."

She blinks at him blankly, eyes uncomprehending. "Say what?"

Tony exhales shakily. "You're pregnant."

Pepper starts frowning at him, denial in her eyes. "I'm not pregnant, Tony," she tells him.

He swallows heavily. "Yeah, Pep. You are."

* * *

_Yes, you are pregnant, Pepper. Because, shower sex._

_I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it! R__eview if you wish, but please send any flames/criticisms via PM ;)  
__~E_


	2. Chapter 2

Originally, it happens like this:

When Pepper arrives back in New York the day before Loki and Thor left, and with everything they needed to say having been said over the phone in the three days they'd been separated, Pepper simply launches herself at him, hands pulling at his clothes to find the wounds she'd thought he'd been hiding from her. His only bruise had actually been from Thor, when Mr. Big-Blond-and-Buff Demigod tried to crush his arm before the whole Thanos-revelation and alien invasion thing happened, and after confirming this with JARVIS, Pepper had let him off the proverbial hook and proceeded to have victory sex with him in the debris-filled living room.

Which had been pretty damn awesome at the time.

Now, though?

…well, it was still a pretty damn awesome memory really, but with Pepper looking at him like the world was ending again, Tony wishes they'd had victory sex in the bedroom instead, mostly because all his condoms were there.

"Tony, please say something." It's the fear in her voice that had him realizing he was being an ass, and he swallows as he takes in the brave face Pepper's wearing.

Because it's not going to be him, is it? He's not the one who'll be puking at all hours of the day, being picky with his food or watching as his body slowly changes before his eyes. It wouldn't be him carrying a child.

_His_ child. A Stark child.

"I—" Tony wants to flinch back as the words form in his head, but Pepper… Pepper needs him.

Doesn't she? She'll need him now, more than ever, and he can't—_won't_—just drop everything and run away when she needed him most. After everything she's done for him, he should offer her some help. Financial support, at the very least. More package benefits, however many she wanted to have—

"I see." Pepper stands up and walks away.

Tony watches her do it, feels his world tip and turn over as his arc reactor feels like it's being ripped out of him again.

And then he runs. Because he can't believe how bad it hurts and so sue him, but he's _far_ too selfish to let her hurt him like this.

Pepper lets out that cute little squeak she always does whenever he surprises her, and Tony laughs into the kiss. The heaviness in his chest lifts away when she starts laughing too.

The next time they have sex is different. It's not we're-alive sex or victory sex or I'm-horny-let-fuck sex or you're-so-damn-awesome-Pepper-let's-have-sex sex. It's I'm-here-for-you sex and I-can't-let-you-go sex and combined, it feels a lot like what Tony had once imagined making love would be like.

And after, when they've caught their breaths, Tony kisses the freckles on her shoulder as he moves his hand over her belly, and Pepper places her hand over his, linking their fingers together.

He swallows back the sensation of stung eyes, clogged throat and panged chest and looks down at her. She's always so beautiful when she's up and about, full of life and fire and spirit, but when Pepper's in bed, she's simply lovely. She's soft and warm and everything Tony never even realized he wanted until it was staring him in the face, looking sweet and sultry at the same time.

And now, with this tiny Potts-Stark being growing in her, she's ethereal. Like an angel, but even more precious. And he'd be a village idiot to ever her go.

Then again, Tony Stark's a genius, so that was unlikely to ever happen.

"Are you sure—?" _—about me? About this? Us?_ He can't get the rest of the words out, partly because he's scared she'd say no, but also because there's a part of him that's already decided that her answer wouldn't matter.

Not anymore, anyway.

Because now? There's a kid in all this—_his_ kid. _Their _kid. A tiny thing that's half-him, half-Pepper, and he knows it's going to be the best kid in the whole damn universe and he's not going to miss a moment of it for anything else. So no matter what her answer might've been or whether she'd change her mind in the near or far future, Pepper Potts is stuck with him. He's going to make sure of it.

And, now that he thought about it, Tony strokes her belly and thinks he's done just that.

"Yes," she replies anyway, those gorgeous blue eyes crinkling as she smiled, her free hand moving up to smooth her thumb over his jaw and cheek. Something in him sighs with glee and utter contentment at her reply, because even if he's decided her answer doesn't matter, it's still a relief to know that she wants him, that even knowing that he's almost all flaws and almost no maturity, she still wants to do this with _him_.

And it's not that Tony doesn't think about what he's doing—his body just processes his subconscious thoughts and reasonings faster than his conscious mind can thoroughly dissect them. So when his mouth shapes the words and his throat provides the voice, Tony blames the angel-like ethereal glow she had going on for the word-vomit that comes next.

"Marry me."

* * *

But that doesn't happen again.

What happens is this:

Tony and Pepper don't have sex of any sort when she comes back because Tony's busy looking for _her_, for the brave girl who went into the past to save Loki and open their eyes to the real threat and _died_ to neutralize said threat once and for all. Tony's not blind to the fact that they owe her _so much_, so he's put Jarvis through the ringer trying to find her.

And when he finally finds her, he's utterly confused at who she's become, because everything he finds about her suggests that she's been right there, growing up with the rest of them all along. That, on top of his nightmares, makes for many a sleepless night as he tries to pry apart the complex history of Anna Thorsdóttir, AKA Anastasia (_"My name…is Anna S— No!"_) Lewis, AKA Yekaterina Volkova. The first of those names comes from I-am-Queen-Hela-of-Niflheim-Goddess-of-the-Inglori ous-Dead herself, and he's pretty sure that she's responsible for the latter two names as well, though _how_ is again another puzzle piece he's yet to find a slot for.

And later, when he approaches her to…well, he'd wanted to thank her and say "If you need anything, just let me know" and he does all that, only to receive a confused look, a wary "Thanks?" and an "Excuse me for a moment" that she never gets back to him about. And even though she knew how important this was to him, Pepper still takes him back to Malibu with her after the restraining order Anna-girl files against him crosses her desk in July. And from then on, all Tony has are the nightmares and his workshop and Pepper, and Pepper's too busy for him to unload his burdens on her as well, so he solves all his problems by simply avoiding sleep. See, Einstein only slept three hours a year and look what he did. With that kind of pressure on Tony's shoulders, well, who needed sleep?

But then Christmastime comes and Pepper finally finds out what he's been doing for the last six months and hugs him and says, "I'm going to shower. You're coming with me." And then, shower sex, where Tony proves he's careless when relieved and unburdened and thus, no condoms are worn while Pepper digs her nails into his shoulders and pants against his throat as he comes balls-deep inside of her under the hot spray of their showerhead. And so, after Killian and Extremis and Tennessee happens, here he is standing next to Bruce Anger-Issues Banner and looking at the test results Bruce had thoroughly run and thinking _My girlfriend is pregnant_.

And thinking _Two weeks ago I had shower sex with Pepper_ and _It's mine_ and _Of course it's mine, it's Pepper's, duh!_ and_ I'm going to be sick_ and _Pepper is going to kill me_ and _I want it_.

He wants it. The baby? He wants it. Wants it almost like he wants Pepper to be in his life forever. _That baby is going to be half-Pepper_, he thinks, _so of course I want it_. A half-Pepper, half-him baby? It was practically a Christmas gift he'd never expected. And actually, now that he's thinking about it, he realizes _hey, __we made that kid two days before Christmas. Cool_.

But then, just like everything else, the pregnancy comes with a price.

"Tony, think about this," Bruce pleads.

"Yeah, _no_," he emphasizes, glaring at Bruce and itching to throw the monkey wrench sitting on the bench beside him at the other man's head. He's only not doing that because once impact occurs, he'd have a large green problem on his hands with no suit to protect him from Hulk's wrath. "No! We're _not_ going to…to do _that_," and god, he can't even say the 'a' word anymore. "Jesus, Bruce, this is my _kid_ we're talking about."

"I know, Tony," he says submissively, "I know you want things to go your way for once, but—"

"But?" he demands, feeling angrier as the conversation went on. "But no, it won't, because I'm Tony Stark and nothing good ever happens to me without it blowing up in my face? Because the universe or whatever knows I don't deserve it? That I don't deserve to be happy without something screwing it up or making me screw it up first?" He edges away from the wrench as he talks, fears that he really would launch it at Bruce's floppy hair, and Tony forces himself to remember that Bruce is his friend.

Even if he's currently being an asshole about this whole pregnancy thing.

Bruce gives him a tired sigh and continues, "But what if the baby was conceived after Pepper's basest DNA code was infected with Extremis?"

That makes Tony pause, his mind processing the possibilities of that line of thought. The reason why Extremis could be fatal to people was because the infected person's genetic material had already bonded with each other, and what Extremis basically did was change the person's physical baseline. But if the baby had been conceived using Pepper's changed eggs…

"Oh," Tony says, subdued now as he traces Bruce's thought process. Jesus Christ. He runs a hand over his face, calculating the chances of _that_ happening, because conception could occur up to five days after intercourse, and Pepper had been infected on Christmas Day. If the baby had been formed after Pepper had been infected… "We can't remove Extremis," he concludes, gut clenching tightly at the thought.

"No," Bruce agrees quietly, "we can't. Half of its genetic material would be comprised of Extremis—hell, your sperm could've been infected as well," he amends. "That kid would run on Extremis and if we take that away—"

"She could die," Tony finishes, the words feeling ugly on his tongue.

"Yeah," Bruce nods. "And we both know how dangerous things can get if the wrong people figure out what she is." He sighs. "Tony, it's not that I wanna be the bad guy here, I'm just…" he shrugs, "I'm just trying to look out for you. For all of you."

He sniffs, scrunching his face as he forces the tears back and claps a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "I know, bud," he says, rising from his position against a workbench and ambling to the door. "Thanks."

"Tony?"

He turns around abruptly. "Hm?"

Bruce gives him a curious look. "She?"

"Huh?" he asks, right before his brain clicks the question together with his earlier (still ugly) statement. "Oh." He falters briefly at that. "Um, well, you know what they say," he shrugs uncomfortably, "sperm with male chromosomes are fast swimmers, but the ones with the double-x chromes last longer. If conception happened after the change, then the baby's probably a girl."

Sometimes, he both surprised and impressed himself with how fast he could come up with a bullshit explanation that sounded probable.

"Right," Bruce says slowly. "Okay then."

Tony smiles a wide grin, then flees the lab and Bruce's judge-y stare.

* * *

_Notes:_

_Yes, the first part actually **is** how I mapped out Anna's beginning—victory sex in the living room as soon as Pepper and Tony were reunited. And since they're having a baby, Tony's ever-logical mind has already assessed the situation and concluded the next step. Marriage._

_However, Anna's arrival in the past changes things, especially since she sacrificed her existence to come back and save her loved ones. Therefore, no New Year's baby for the Starks._

_Why? Well, if it's not obvious, drop a review in and ask what I need to clarify so I can add it into a later chapter. ;)_

_And by the way, Anna is an OFC from the story Time-Traveler, which is an AU of The Avengers movie and Part 1 of The Monkey Wrench Avengers series. She is __Tony and Pepper Stark's _biological daughter.

_My source for the conception part can be found on Google. Simply type in 'How long after sex does conception occur?' and pick the one from howstuffworks._

_Review, my dears!_

_~E_


	3. Chapter 3

Pepper doesn't react well to the news. His couch, now burnt up and unsalvageable, is proof of this. And yeah, he was pretty much an idiot for blowing up _all_ of his suits, because following Angry!Pepper isn't as safe as it used to be now that she's ah, _flammable_.

Tony keeps a five-foot distance as she makes her way to the elevator, watching as she kicks her ruined pair of heels midway and destroys the elevator pad when she jabs her finger at it harder than it could take. "Jarvis, remind me to fix that," he says casually, mindful of Pepper's newfound super-hearing and knowing that she'd hate it if he even _tried_ to hide that statement from her. "And order a new pair of shoes for Pep."

"Very well, sir," Jarvis agrees.

Pepper releases a frustrated "Arrrgh," and kicks the wall, stumbling when her foot pushes a hole in it and sucks her leg in. That's probably Tony's cue to try and calm her down.

"So you don't want it?" he asks as he—despite knowing how easily she could swat him aside—plants himself firmly behind her and folds his arms over his chest, bracing himself for her answer. So much for calming her down.

Worst case scenario: she doesn't want the baby, would choose to get rid of the…the _infection_ immediately, and because there was no way she could survive the baby's natural body temperature without Extremis, they would need to…to get rid of_ it_, before Pepper could be returned to normal again.

Best case scenario: Pepper agrees to wait to remove Extremis until the baby comes, and they'll live as happily as they can be.

"Tony—" he tenses up unconsciously as she turns around to look at him with glowing orange eyes, "—Tony, Jesus, I can't think about this right now. I'm sorry, but I— I— I— I just…" she exhales slowly, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes, "I just can't. I'm sorry." The elevator dings and opens, and Pepper jabs the close button once she's inside. "I really am."

He's pursing his lips by the time the doors close on Pepper's panicked face, his eyes stinging at the non-rejection. Yeah, she didn't say no, but she didn't say yes either—didn't seem the least bit happy at the prospect—and even though he knew she needed time to adjust to the idea, like he had, it still hurt.

"Right," he says aloud, nodding for no one to see. "Right, I'll just," he points back to the lab. "Yeah."

"Sir…"

"Just—" He huffs and softens his tone. "Just get her those shoes, J." And with that, he turns and heads back to his workshop.

Bruce looks up and grimaces. "Bad?"

"See Exhibit A," Tony can't help but snark, pointing to the incinerated couch. "B and C are down the hall. D is in the elevator."

"Ah. Worse then."

Tony waves a hand. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"Okay," Bruce says easily, bending back to peer through the microscope in front of him. How old school.

"I mean, it's not like it's a big deal," Tony tells him as he hoists himself on the table beside his newest bestie. "It's just a baby. We can make those anytime she's ready right?"

"Er, I guess?" Bruce replies, giving him a weird look. "I'm not really the person to ask, Tony."

Tony blinks at him, his morose thoughts grinding to a halt. "You're right," he says, hopping off the table. "You got this covered?" he asks, waving his hand abstractly as he backs out the door once more.

Bruce shoots him a bewildered look. "Yeah? Tony, where are you going?"

He shrugs. "To the right person," he replies, slipping out the door. "Jarvis, get me an elevator. And find our little time-traveler's newest number, would you?"

"Already done, sir," Jarvis answers. "Sir," he adds, "do you think it wise to seek out Miss Lewis regarding this matter? She has quite adamantly insisted that she is not who you think she is."

"Eh, probably not," Tony shrugs casually, "but think about it J—who else would know about my future kids than a time-traveler?"

What he doesn't say is that he doesn't care about unearthing future secrets anymore. That he believes it when Anna says she has no idea what he's talking about.

He just wants a reason to talk.

"Very well, sir," Jarvis says, and that's that.

* * *

She stays in the pool until there isn't a pool to stay in anymore, and when she hauls herself up the ladder, the room looks like it's been converted into a sauna. That's okay though, because her body's running too hot to feel the heat anyway and because at least she no longer looks like a creature from the depths of Hell and because this was time well-spent _thinking_.

"Jarvis, where's Tony?" she asks quietly, pulling her semi-burnt clothes over her now-dry skin.

"On the balcony, Miss Potts," the AI responds, a touch of cool civility in his tone. Great, now even she and Jarvis are back at square one.

"Is he leaving?" she wonders, then shakes her head because how would he leave through the balcony now that all his suits were gone? "Never mind. I'll go…" She stops talking and starts walking, because she's never had to explain herself to Jarvis and she's not going to start now. When the elevator comes, it's the same one she'd taken before, and she quietly traces the melted indentation her feet had made on the floor with her toes, wondering when—not if—Tony would have this elevator fixed too.

Her ears pick up Tony's exasperated tones as the elevator opens on the penthouse floor, and she feels her teeth grind in annoyance when a familiar, if tinny voice responds to Tony's remark.

Ana.

For the second time that day, she sneers at the mere thought of the pretty brunette, because ever since she'd seen the girl's picture and heard how Tony had made a suspicious deal with a death goddess to save Ana's life, she'd _known._

Ana was Tony's daughter.

It hurt her deeply to realize that he'd _clearly_ never intended to tell her about it, because if he had, then why hasn't he? He's had close to ten years to tell her about his off-spring, has had over a year to come clean about potential stepdaughters she might have, and yet…

So yeah. Pepper's hurt and she's resented him for his silence on the matter and it's part of the reason why she hadn't complained when she woke up in the middle of the night and found herself alone in bed those first few days, having needed the time to contemplate what this revelation meant for her feelings for him.

Unsurprisingly, she forgives Tony for his lie via omission. She knows him well enough to heavily consider the fact that he'd be scared of her reaction, and would've continued to put it off until it was touch too late to speak up.

It was too late now. The only reason she hadn't felt—doesn't feel—_completely_ betrayed is because he no longer remembers that he _has_ a daughter at all. _I sacrificed something big, Pep_, he'd told her frustratedly, _and I wanna know what it is about her that I'd just __**do**__ something like that __**for**__ her_. She'd doubted him for all of a moment, because she's seen Tony at his highest and lowest points and throughout it all, Tony never failed to protect what he considered his, and this attitude he was sprouting had to be genuine, because it didn't match up with his past actions. He no longer knew he had a daughter, had given up the knowledge as payment in exchange for her life, and in typical Tony-fashion, he wanted to know what he'd given up, wanted to know what the girl was worth to him.

It was all terribly ironic and sad, and with that kind of sacrificial devotion supporting him, coupled with the emotional roller-coaster he'd ridden during their disastrous first Christmas as a couple, it was now practically moot point for her to hold onto her anger, when she knows how big a deal it had to be for him to give up the very knowledge that he had a child just so that said child wouldn't _stay _dead. A child that he—as far as she (Jarvis) has been able to determine—had never even approached at any point in her whole life. And, from what she's seen from the girl's _full _profile, Ana had been through just as much misery as her father has in the span of her young life. She was a tiny twisted tale that branched from Tony's already heartbreaking experiences. Their life's stories could probably surpass even the worst Greek or Shakespearean tragedies, and while Tony has been through too much for Pepper to even consider adding to the boatload of troubles he's already trying to solve single-handedly, she can't bring herself to feel anything else but annoyance for Tony's daughter, and thus, can't bring herself to say _anything_ to Tony, to ease his frustration and tell him what he wants to know.

On the other hand, Ana's existence lets her better understand why Tony _wants_ her to want the baby growing inside her. Why _Tony_, of all people, wants a baby. He missed out on Ana, for reasons unclear to Pepper, and even though he isn't aware of her anymore, his subconscious probably does, which is why he wants a second chance at playing father to someone. But Pepper…

God, it's not that she doesn't _want_ children—of course it's not that. It's just that…

Well, to put it real bluntly, the timing _sucks_. She's just _not ready_ for something as big as this, not after everything that's just happened to her. She'd wanted to get rid of this monstrosity inside her, to go back to normal and go to work and come home and find a humungous stuffed toy waiting at the front door and have date night with Tony and _be normal_. She doesn't want…

She doesn't want to delay _her normal_ anymore. And if this baby was getting in the way of that then… God, then she doesn't want this baby. And that was awful of her, and such a monstrous thought that maybe it's not coming from her at all, maybe it's the _other_ her that thinking these things but she doesn't know—_can't_ know—for sure until the monster was gone.

_God_. She _really_ doesn't want anything else but to go back to the way things used to be, before Killian and the Mandarin and…and the baby. But Tony said there were complications now, that the baby was complicating things and God, why hadn't she held her temper in at least until after he'd explained what 'complications' meant. Because then she'd know what _all_ her options were.

…but he's right. As usual, Tony was right. Even if she didn't want it, she wouldn't kill an innocent child, especially not her own.

She won't give in to her monster. Not that way.

Her eyes watch her boyfriend as he snorts into the phone, and as she steps out of the elevator, she hears him say, "Sweetheart—" and doesn't that just make her chest twist in jealously and anger? "—you said you never wanted to _see_ me again, which is why I _call_. Besides," he adds charmingly, "I know you didn't mean that and I forgive you for it." And then he reverts back to his childish tone. "C'mon, Anna-girl, just a little hint. Pleeeeeeeease?"

From the other end of the call, Pepper hears Anna huff in annoyance. "_For the last time_," she says, "_I'm __**not**__ a time-traveler from the future, which means I have no idea if you ever had kids_." Ah. So that's what Tony's trying to do now. "_Get that through your thick, crazy head, Stark!_"

Tony turns, his profile now visible enough that she can see the flash of hurt that flickers on his face. "Now, hang on," he says, but Anna has cut the connection by then, leaving Tony to pull his phone from his ear and stare at it with a confused pout. "That's…annoying."

_That_ has Pepper stifling a snicker, because that? Was such a Tony thing to do. If she had doubts about her Anna-is-a-Stark theory, this quashed them.

(She also has to quash the irritation that flares up at that little confirmation, because how dare he? How dare he have a child and not tell her then tell her she's pregnant with his _next_ spawn and—?)

"Well, now you know how it feels," Pepper quips, leaning into the archway that led in and out of the living room.

"I never do that to you," Tony says, smiling at her, and later she'll realize that he hadn't even questioned how she'd known what had happened.

"Not anymore," she agrees, watching him slip his phone into his pocket and saunter towards her.

"How are you?" he asks, and the way he angles forward—hands rising to catch her if she ever fell, as if she was genetically-modified to be weak instead of strong—knocks her off-balance. A part of her recoils at the thought of being treated like a weakling (because she's never been _weak_), but then she catches the hopeful flicker in his eyes and realizes that that's not what he's reaching out for at all, and she extends her arm, reaches for him as well, and the relief on his face is so blatant that she wants to kick herself for thinking all the wrong things.

God, when the hell had she started doing _that?_

She buries her face into his shoulder and inhales his scent—tangy with a hint of ozone and metal—and says "I'm okay."

His fingers brunch at her shirt and twist, like he's quietly trying to keep her with him, keep her safe through sheer will alone. He scents her out too, presses his nose to her neck and takes a deep breath, like she's the only kind of air he breathes, and sighs "Love you, Pep" in a way that makes her heart leap into her throat. Happiness fills her, irrepressible in its intensity, because she can tell that he means it, that he's meant it since he'd admitted his sleeping problems and since long before that too.

_But why didn't he tell me?_ she wonders, a part of her still locked on her issues with Ana, and that's why she makes a completely illogical segue into the next agenda on their list.

"Tony," she says, then pulls slightly back to look him in the eye, "Tony, let's do it." She smiles at his confused blink and elaborates. "Let's have a baby."

* * *

_Notes:_

_For those who got confused by the Anna bit, __**see the story 'Time-Traveler'**__ on my stories list for more details. Anna/'Ana' is Tony and Pepper Stark's biological daughter from the story Time-Traveler. And don't worry. While I may refer to or include scenes with Anna in them, she won't be the central point of Fixing Pepper—that honor falls on Tony and Pepper. This is their show, and Anna only gets to be there because she's a big part of…well, no spoilers. Let's just say that time-travel plays its part and leave it at that, for now._

_And yes, Pepper __**is**__ acting erratically, and that's partly because she's not just battling her feelings about Ana. Again, no spoilers, so more on this later._

_Review for me?  
__~E_


	4. Chapter 4

Pepper can tell that Tony isn't sold on what she's said. He says "If that's you really want, then okay" and doesn't bring it up, but she's known him for a long time, knows when something's eating at him and knows when it's about her. She's an expert on all things Tony, really.

Thing is, she doesn't know how to convince him that she means it. Mostly because, well, she _doesn't_. She'd done her best to always let her true self shine, but right now, her true self is…well, _conflicted_, the way it never is when it comes to Tony. All she ever really wants nowadays is for him to be happy, to have the kind of life he didn't get when he was younger.

But now, what she wants for him turns out to be something she isn't ready for. So what else is there for her to do?

Well, aside from getting herself a new set of clothes.

"Let's go to the lab," Tony offers as she pulls a clean shirt over her shoulders and buttons it up. "Bruce…well, he can explain it in better terms than I can."

_Not true_, she almost says, but a part of her is curious about what Bruce's perspective on this is, so she follows him to the elevator when she's done shimmying on a pair of jean shorts.

"That's so cute," Tony tells her as they enter the smaller space, and Pepper giggles at his reaction to her feet imprinted on the floor. "We're keeping that. Not this though," he tacks on as he jabs the button for his private workshop on the damaged control panel. "Definitely not— Hey, you went to the pool?" He looks her over, then grins. "Is there any water left?"

She's not _that_ surprised at his conclusion. She _isn't_. "Not a drop," she replies sheepishly.

Tony turns his eyes up. "I can't decide whether I love that you're hot enough to empty an Olympic-sized pool with just the power of your— Oof!" He laughs, taking the hand she'd assaulted him with. "I'm kidding," he protests, tangling his fingers with hers.

"I know," she says, padding out and pulling him along as the elevator doors open on his floor. She spies her Pradas where she'd kicked them to the side and sighs. "I _liked_ that pair."

"I'm already getting you a new pair, remember?" he reminds her, slinging an arm around her. "I'll even break them in for you if you want."

"But Tony," she rests her palm on his chest, just above his arc reactor, "you _always_ break in my shoes for me."

"_Shh!_" he hisses, glancing towards the workshop's open doors. "Not around Bruce, Jesus Henry Christ!"

She laughs, deep from her belly, and when they enter the room, Bruce greets them with a guileless smile that breaks when he winks at her. Pepper grins, fights a laugh and makes a note to send a certain video to her newest ally in Tony-wrangling.

* * *

Tony can't quite stop watching Pepper. It's not a bad thing really, far from it, but usually he feels a lot more…_happy_—that's the closest word he can use—when he Pepper-watches. Today, he feels…_unsettled_. Yes, that _exactly_ the word he's looking for.

Unsettled. Troubled. Disconcerted. Bring out the rest of the synonyms from the dictionary, boys and girls, because Tony Stark is _feelin'_ it.

And not in the good way, either.

"Oh," Pepper's saying as Bruce finishes explaining why the baby complicated the matter. "But we _can_ still get rid of it, right? After the baby is born?"

Tony's arc reactor fritzes briefly, the pang of conflicting emotions echoing through his body even as his mind zooms in on the way she says the words. There's something there, he knows. He just can't put his finger on it, on what's putting him off-balance.

"Yes," Bruce nods, smiling comfortingly. "We can."

"Thank God," Pepper sighs, lips curving into a smile, eyes crinkling and twinkling with relief.

"You're welcome," Tony quips automatically, smirking when he's given almost identical looks of exasperation. The only person missing now is Rhodey, and Tony'd have all the people he'd ever need right in one room. He really had to come up with a fool-proof plan to lure to get his stubborn asshole of a best friend into getting his last toe out the door and finally complete his jump onto the Tony-is-awesome bandwagon.

Suddenly, his eyes refocus as Pepper shifts, trading in her look of exasperation for a wide grin while she launches herself at him, lips finding lips before she pulls back and says, "You're the best."

Tony flounders at that, at the pure adoration in her eyes and voice and smile, and he feels all the words he could say rush up this throat, bottlenecking at the back of his throat as he stares back at her, helpless as he thinks—not for the first time—how lucky he is to have this beautiful being in his life, how close he'd come to losing her.

How far he'd go just to keep her. Safe. To himself. Alive.

Happy.

_I love you_ makes it through the clamoring in his tongue, leaps off his lips, and Pepper softens—her smile smaller but more intimate, her eyes half-opened but focused solely on him—as she says the words back, whispers "I love you too," for only his ears to hear even though Bruce's superhearing won't let him miss it. Pepper leans in to kiss him gently, lovingly, and what else can Tony do but kiss back with the same care, with the same breath-hitching passion that's always there when he's with Pepper.

Jesus. He loves her so damn much it feels like his chest would burst with it.

So why does it feel like something is terribly, utterly wrong with this picture?

* * *

_Notes:_

_**Jesus Henry Christ**: I forgot where I read this from, but Tony said it and I was surprised into laughing. Someone tell me where it's from because the author deserves proper credit._

_BTW, check out __claudiapriscus__'s Extremis!Pepper-centric story __**There's only one phoenix (and it's not me)**__. I thought it was great and promised I'd plug it here for advertising. I never could do that kind of story, and so I'm in awe of the authors who can. Kudos! :)_

_Review, dear?  
__~E__  
_


	5. Chapter 5

The next two-and-a-half weeks finds Pepper working from Tony's workshop while he modifies the machine that should ("_Would_," Tony says, because if his father's version of this contraption helped create Captain America, then Tony's version sure as hell will help fix Pepper) inject the missing bonding agent (that Bruce is cooking up to help Pepper's body stabilize itself) and absorb any and every attempt her body _will _make to burn the new serum out before it can fix her. Tony thinks it makes her feel better to see where all the bits and pieces go and how it's all going to work in keeping her alive. He doesn't mention—nor does she notice, thankfully—how wrung out he is the whole time, worrying over every little thing and double-checking all the equipment and putting redundant cameras in _every_ angle to make sure that Jarvis has no blind spots and that no one can sneak in to sabotage what may be the most important mechanism he will ever build.

Until D-Day comes, Tony runs on coffee, cat naps and Pepper's unexpected kisses. The latter gives him strength, gets him through the nightmares of losing Pepper, of putting her in that chamber he's building and blowing her up, of hearing her scream and watching her burn herself out, of doing nothing while she stepped out and crumbled into ashes while he ran and ran towards her and never got close enough to save her.

Of her falling from a crane and into a fiery pit and never surviving, like she actually had.

And for all his love for her, Tony Stark cannot bring himself to come near the machine when he finishes it, even if it's just to strap her in. The control panel stands firmly between the man behind Iron Man's mask and the machine that should (would) fix the love of his life.

"Is this comfortable?" Bruce asks Pepper as she lies back, patiently waiting for Bruce to finish strapping her into the casing's interior chamber securely.

"Yes, thank you, Bruce," she replies, then looks up at Tony from across the console with a wry-but-tense smile. "Relax," she tells him. "I'll be fine."

"I know," he shrugs, feigning nonchalance even though his heart is pounding thrice its usual rhythm as the last of the straps _vriiip_ through the air. "Pep, I—" he paused, running through all the things he could say to her in this moment and deeming them all inadequate. He's worried and scared for her, at the possibility that he's somehow screwed up at a time when he absolutely _cannot_ screw up because it's Pepper on the line here.

Pepper and their child.

He'd never survive it if—

"Stop that," Pepper barks, frowning to emphasize her words. "I trust you. I trust your work."

"I know," he repeats, swallowing as he feels the heavy weight of her words settle on his shoulders. They're comforting and damning and holy mother of fuck, he hopes he doesn't let her down.

"Ready, Tony?" Bruce asks as he walks up to him, pulling his protective goggles over his head and letting them rest temporarily around his neck. "Pepper?"

"I'm good to go," Pepper nods at Bruce before cutting her eyes back to him. "Tony?"

He smiles, or at least tries to. "Jarvis, how much power is in the battery?"

"Power at ninety-seven percent capacity," Jarvis replies. "Ninety-eight percent capacity."

Bruce hums as Jarvis counts out the last of the numbers. "Ready?" he asks, eyeing the big red button that was going to start the procedure. Tony had been going for humorous irony when he chose the size and color, but now, it was…well, it was wreaking havoc on his nerves.

"Power at one-hundred percent capacity," Jarvis says, finality in his tone. "Disconnecting the power cells from the arc reactor. Power cells disconnected." Abruptly, the hum of electricity surging through the power coils fades away. "Power conversion is ready to begin at your leisure, sir."

Tony sucks in another shaky breath and looks to Bruce, who turns to look him in the eye and asks, "Tony, do I have to slap some sense back into you or are you going to get a grip on your own?"

"Jesus, Bruce, don't you know you need to wait until the seventh date before you bring up the kinky shit?" he replies automatically, shooting Bruce a lascivious grin even as his gut churns, heart clenching even as his mind sharpens back on task.

"Aaaand you're back," Bruce groans drolly, lightening the moment briefly. "It'll be quick," he reminds him, handing him his goggles. "Like ripping a band-aid off."

"Yeah," Tony agrees blankly, tugging the shaded lenses over his eyes. "Sure. Let's get this over with," he agrees, but it's all false bravado, because while he'd easily fixed his machine to lock comfortably around her, he can't quite bring himself to press the button, to lock her in and stand a short-but-too-long distance away when she would be trapped inside a metal box.

A coffin.

Bruce seemingly understands because he hits the big red button for Tony instead. _What a pal_, Tony thinks as his companion puts a comforting hand on his shoulder, the both of them watching the machine close in around Pepper, who gives a small grimace as the needle slides into her skin just before the metal seals her in. Not even five seconds later, the indestructible window Tony had thoughtfully added starts glowing orange, signaling the use of Extremis.

And Pepper, much to Tony's horror, gives a long, muffled scream.

* * *

"The Extremis serum is basically…paint," Bruce had said, dumbing it all down for her, "and your genetic makeup is a blank canvas. Bear with me," he added, smiling when she lifted an eyebrow his way. "It's been a while since I needed to use analogies."

"I think you're doing great!" Tony had cheered from behind a mask before flicking on the soldering iron he was about to unleash on a defenseless slab of metal.

Bruce had simply exchanged an exasperated look with her, and Pepper briefly commiserated before returning to the topic at hand. "You were saying? About paints and canvases?"

"Right," he'd nodded. "Well, maybe not a canvas," he amended after a moment. "Maybe a…figurine?"

"Okay," Pepper had given him a slow nod as she pieced the analogy together and applied it to her situation. "So Extremis painted my genetic makeup over?"

"Yes!" Bruce had exclaimed, proud triumph in his eyes, and Pepper couldn't help but preen. "That's basically it. But," he added, "the paint peels off of you the hotter you burn, which is bad because it's chipping away at your base genes, pulling parts out of their proper places. This," he gestured to the mixture bubbling in his carefully arranged chemistry set, "is a bonding agent that will stop Extremis from peeling away altogether. Like…like varnish."

Pepper had hummed thoughtfully, her gaze landing on her French-tipped nails as she turned the newest analogy over in her head. She absently exchanged paint for nail polish, canvas/figurine for nail and varnish for a manicure, and everything started making more sense in her head.

"Okay." She then nodded to where Tony was crouched. "So what's that for?"

Bruce had cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Well," he said, "from what we can tell, your immune system is...off-the-charts," he clearly euphemized. "Your body basically fights off external substances by burning it out, quick and hot. That," he motioned to the contraption Tony was tinkering with, "will hopefully absorb—"

"_Will_," Tony had interjected, having flicked off the blow torch and heard their discussion.

Bruce had rolled his eyes. "—_will_ absorb," he adjusted obligingly, "the heat you give off, so that you don't burn yourself or the bonding agent out before it can stabilize your body."

She turned that over her head and nodded eventually. "I understand," she'd said.

Turns out, she hadn't. Not really.

Or at least, Bruce hadn't seen fit to inform her that it would_ hurt like hell_.

Pepper grits her teeth for as long as she could stand the pain, which wasn't as long as she'd have liked it to be. When she lets loose the scream building from her gut, she hears Tony cry out immediately, horror accompanying her name before he starts yelling at Bruce, fighting to get past the other man. Not long after that, Pepper stops hearing anything but her own cries.

Sometime before Tony went to Afghanistan, she and Tony watched _Constantine_, a movie about the devil's son trying to claw its way out of hell. Keanu Reeves's titular character was sent to hell because he tried to commit suicide, and in the few minutes that he was dead, he said that those few minutes felt like an eternity.

Later, as Tony shakily claws her out of her buckles and whisks her off for a cold bath, unmindful of the heat she was giving off or the fact that his own skin was reddening and blistering because of their close contact, Pepper's now-sharper eyesight will see the clock and learn that only three minutes has passed since she was injected and think _Constantine was right_ before passing out in Tony's arms.

* * *

_Notes:_

_I'm not quite happy with this chapter. I feel like there's something missing. If someone figures out what, feel free to shoot what it is my way—I'd be glad to fix this up._

_xoxo,  
~E_


	6. Chapter 6

Pepper wakes up to the sound of hushed voices and the smell of coffee and hums in want. "Coffee," she grunts, reaching out. Someone snickers as a warm mug is carefully placed in her grip, and she opens her eyes a pinch to glare at the two blurry figures while taking a sip of her coffee.

"Pffffff! Blech!" She sticks her tongue out as she sits up, feeling the warm liquid trickle where she'd managed to spray herself.

"You're awake!" Tony exclaims, and Pepper turns to glare at him, only to see that he's just entering the room. He paused just as abruptly as he'd arrived, eyes looking over the scene before turning to glare at the others with her. "What happened?"

"Cool it, Papa Bear," Rhodey replies from where he sat beside her, a wide grin on his face despite the wet mess he'd become, having been right in front of Pepper when she spat the unexpected tea out. "We were just welcoming Pepper back from her Sleeping Beauty gig. Guess who won the bet on what her first word would be."

Pepper blushes as she remembers what her first priority had been, hitting his arm with a small growl. "You're an ass, James Rhodes."

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, I hear ya," he says, still grinning, though he wraps an arm around her familiarly. "Welcome back," he tells her warmly.

"Welcome back?" she echoes, suddenly tasting the relief falling heavily in the air. "What do you mean?" She sees Bruce look at Tony from over her head, feels Rhodey do the same thing, and realizes that _something_ was going on. "Tony?" she asks, pulling away from Rhodey to turn around just in time to see Tony complete the motion of sitting down beside her.

He takes her hand in his, dark eyes looking at her with this…_hunger_ she'd never seen in him before. "Pep," he says, "you've been asleep for a long time."

She blinks and doesn't understand what he means until he puts his hand on her belly.

Her horrifyingly big, no longer flat belly.

She gasps, leaps out of the bed tangled in blankets and scoots away from Tony's voice as she fights to free herself, the fabrics burning where she touches and tearing where she pulls until no fabric was left to touch and pull at.

"Pepper!" Tony…he doesn't shout or yell, he just says her name firmly, before his hands land on her shoulders, and she blames instinct when she lashes out, sending Tony flying across the room with a **boom** and a flash. And then she sits there, crouched on the floor, panting and staring at his prone body until he groans and twitches.

That, more than anything else, snaps her out of it.

"Oh god," she breathes, just as Bruce runs into the room and stops to take in the scene.

His skin, she sees, ripples green for a moment. "Pepper," he says as he makes a beeline for Tony, "are you okay?"

"I…" _don't know_, she wants to tell him, feeling her heart lodge in her throat as he looks Tony over. "I didn't mean to do that," she says instead. "I didn't mean to. Oh god, Bruce, I didn't—"

"M'fine," she hears Tony mumble, his arm moving in her direction and she doesn't have to think about leaping for it, about holding his hand and pressing her lips to his knuckles.

"Tony, I'm so sorry," she whimpers. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to—it just happened! _God_, I'm so, so sorry!"

"S'okay," Tony tells her, giving her fingers a squeeze and a shake. "I'll be fine."

She doesn't quite believe him until Bruce says it himself. "He'll be fine," he tells her, his back straightening with a slight cracking sound. "No burns or open wounds to worry about, and the bruises will be good for his soul, I think."

"Love you too, honey-bunny," Tony snarks, which reassures her more than 'he'll be fine' ever could.

Pepper sniffles and presses her forehead against his gingerly. "I'm sorry."

He pushes his head up slightly. "I forgive you." Three little words she never thought she'd be on the receiving end of. Weeks ago, it would've been Tony who needed her forgiveness—

Wait, weeks ago?

She pulls up and looks down, smoothing her hands over her (Tony's) shirt and seeing the flat planes of her belly. And then she looks around, finding only three people in the room. No Rhodey.

_It was a dream_, she thinks, but keeps her relief at bay to ask, "How long was I out?"

"Few hours," Bruce answers, quickly hiding his wary looks (_him_ giving _her_ wary looks? Jesus). "Your body seems to have accepted the serum, but we won't know if it'll work until we test it."

She lets the relief in, because _thank god that was just a dream_.

"No testing," Tony mumbles, frowning. Pepper smiles, feeling better to know that even after sending him crashing into a wall, he was still practically oozing his worries about her.

"Tony, how else can we be sure that Pepper's safe?" Bruce says, and Pepper recognizes someone playing dirty when she sees one—she's used the same tactics on Tony herself.

Sure enough, Tony grumbles, "Shit, you sound like Pepper," and opens one eye to glare at them. Well, at Bruce, but Pepper was somewhat in the crossfire. "I have an idea."

"Oh no," she and Bruce chorus. A happy accident.

"Oh no," Tony echoes, opening his eyes all the way now. "You two, separate before you merge and become one terrifying Hulk!Pepper being." He paused. "Huh. A She-Hulk. Wonder what that would look like."

Pepper rolls her eyes, and Tony whines in protest.

"See, you two're doing it again! Stop it, that's freaky!"

* * *

Surprisingly, it takes him less than a minute to arrange his idea. The only hiccup in the plan had been finding the man's phone number, because he apparently blew through phones like he burned through civvies. The sim cards, just like the phones, were all casualties of reckless carelessness.

The ensuing conversation goes like this:

"Hey man, this is Tony Stark. I need a favor."

A pause. "Tony Stark? Seriously? Okay, fine, I'll bite. Whaddaya need?"

"Tell you when you get to the tower. Top floor. There's a balcony you can land on."

"…cool. Be there in five."

End conversation.

"Tony, I'm not so sure this is a good idea," Bruce says as he and Pepper are herded to the balcony, drinks in hand.

"Well, I never said this was a good idea, just that I _had_ an idea."

"We're doomed," Pepper says calmly before sipping her mango-flavored water. Pepper argues that it was still mango juice, but whatever, Tony's always right, right? Right.

Bruce cracks up unexpectedly in response to Pepper's words.

"I think you broke him," Tony tells her, frowning before an old adage comes to mind. "You break it, you buy it, right? Does that mean he's ours now, Pep?"

She rolls her eyes, but a smile plays on the corners of her lips. "_I _broke him, remember?" she teases.

Tony paused. "Yeah, but what's yours is mine right?"

Pepper purses her lips. "I think that's only for married couples."

"So marry me."

She blinks. "Well, I guess since I got twelve-percent of the tower…"

He groans. "That's going to haunt me forever, isn't it?"

"Is that him?" Bruce butts in, pointing to the right.

Tony squints, because of course the bastard would use the sun to cover his grand entrance. Asshole. Tony could tell they'd get along just fine. "Yep."

It takes said asshole just another ten seconds to reach the balcony, because unlike Tony's suits, he doesn't have breaks in his ride. He does, however, turn the power off and land like Tony likes to (has to) on the platform. He straightens up and smiles winningly, and Tony's stunned to find himself looking at a cockier version of Steve Rogers.

"Goodness gracious great balls of fire!"

The guy blinks. "Really? You're leading with a Jerry Lee Lewis song?"

Tony smirks. "I'm impressed you even got the reference, kid."

He glowers. "M'not a kid, Jesus," he almost pouts. "Tell me what I'm doing here, Stark, or I'm gone."

"Cool your jets, Jerry Lee," Tony says, gently nudging Pepper forward. "This is my lovely wife-to-be, Pepper Potts. Pep, this is Johnny Storm, your sensei in the art of firestarting, or whatever you want to call it."

Dark blond eyebrows rise in intrigue. "Excuse me?"

Pepper holds a hand up and lets it glow, orange overtaking her skin.

Storm grins, eyes lit with excitement. "Shiny."

Tony snorts. A Firefly reference? Really? Jesus, Pepper's right—she _is _doomed.

* * *

_Notes:_

_Civvies: civilian clothing_

_And yeah, I went there. Johnny Storm everyone!_

_The next chapter is the last chapter, so look out for that. __Sorry for taking…wow, 22 days to update. My sister got me sucked into the world of SimCity and I only recently clawed my way out of the shallow pit of god-like power._

_Hope you liked it so far,  
__~E__  
_


	7. Chapter 7

Originally, it happens like this:

At his insistence, Pepper and Tony move back to Malibu after they find out she's pregnant, because between the fascists crawling out of the woodwork to try and recreate the wormhole and the megalomaniacs trying to take advantage of the chaos, New York is not the safest place for a superhero's baby to grow. They offer no explanation to Fury (who kicked up a fuss despite the knowing look in his eye) and disappear to California. Later, Tony and Happy kidnap her from the office and whisk her off on his plane with Rhodey, Bruce and, to Pepper's surprise, her mother.

Tony proposes to her on the balcony of their suite, and then marries her on a gondola in a canal filled with floating flower-shaped candles under the full moon while their plane companions act as their witnesses. Their rings are made of the same material Tony's suits are, and Pepper's diamond has the same blue glow as the arc reactor in Tony's chest. She cries during his vows and he staunchly denies ever shedding a tear until Pepper's mother brandishes the video she took like a weapon and dares her son-in-law to lie to her again. Tony puts her name on the lease of the next Stark building in DC as an apology.

When Pepper's past the first trimester and the risk of miscarriage disappears and her belly starts showing through her clothes, they cruelly wait until she's five months on before announcing the pregnancy to the world. The world, in turn, is thrilled for them. Happy is, of course, the first to congratulate them, because he's in the house when he sees the news. Bruce and the rest of The Avengers are next because they're squatting in his tower and have access to Jarvis in New York and the Stark Industries network is the fastest and most secure server to date. Rhodey pays them a visit and knocks Tony to the floor for not telling him first, then demands to be the kid's godfather. Tony gives a pleased, toothy, bloody smile and agrees. SHIELD sends several gift baskets of baby-centric goodies that Tony tries to throw into the garbage. Pepper donates them all to an orphanage, which is much more devious.

Trouble comes a-knockin' on New Year's Eve, and the fear and stress of the situation makes Pepper go into labor. Happy smartly rushes her to the second-nearest hospital and out of harm's way while Tony does his best to cover her back and help his team at the same time, calling on his best suit, then his next best and so on until all eight suits are too damaged or disabled to fight in and he's forced to pick up a gun. He calls War Machine, who has already abandoned his Very Important Meeting in DC to help them out. The Black Widow appears next to him and gives him some ammo, and then she's shot, blood spilling down her chest as she slips to the ground. Tony leans over to cover the hole in her chest and slumps over her, his unparalleled genius brain splattered all over the raised concrete they'd been ducked behind. His weight presses down on her wound, and Natasha Romanoff lives long enough for Clint Barton to find her, to push Tony off of her and take her into his arms and sob disbelievingly into her dusty red hair before she follows Tony's lead while two miles away, a red-faced Pepper watches as her newborn daughter took her first breath and gave a strong, sharp wail, and the rest of the world rings in the New Year.

* * *

But that doesn't happen again.

What happens is this:

Tony fixes Pepper's problem with Bruce's help and introduces her to Johnny Storm, and the epic friendship of two firestarters begins. With Johnny's help, Pepper learns how to control the fire now flowing through her veins and together, they help Tony and Bruce affirm the fact that they've removed the overheating troubles. Once _she's_ out of danger, Tony decides to have his own body fixed up, the shrapnel from his body taken out by the best team of surgeons in the world while Pepper and Rhodey stand watch.

And then, while Tony has a heart-to-heart with Bruce and fesses up the full story of the past Christmastime, Pepper takes Johnny on a thank-you-for-your-help shopping trip, picking out flame-retardant fabrics and enlisting the services of several fashion designers to make a whole new wardrobe for their flammable selves. Johnny is understandably delighted and introduces Pepper to the World of Whedon (specifically Firefly) and then one day, on impulse, takes Pepper—the only woman he knew who could possibly survive it—for a spin in the sky. Tony witnesses them land on the balcony—Pepper smiling wide, her hair a literally windblown mess—and, in a fit of jealousy of her and Johnny's über closeness, finally gets down on his knee and proposes to her once more. He does this several times more until Rhodey clues him in and Tony makes a ring out of the gold-titanium scraps from his old Iron Man suits, a small blue diamond sitting proudly at the crown. He puts it on a necklace and hangs it on the lamp on Pepper's side of the bed while she's asleep, and Pepper comes out the next day wearing it on her finger.

Tony plans for a wedding in Venice, gondolas and all, but Pepper derails his plans by dragging him to Las Vegas. With Bruce as their adorably-ruffled ring bearer, Rhodey as Tony's best man and Johnny as Pepper's groom of honor, they're married in a Chapel of Love by—and this is a priceless moment in Tony's life—a Captain America-masked Elvis Presley. Tony sends the picture of them to Steve Rogers, who (according to Barton) literally facepalmed when he saw the photo, much to Tony's utter glee. And when the story of their scandalously cliché Vegas wedding breaks out on the evening news, Pepper's indignant mother calls to complain about Pepper's silence on the matter.

Over four months later, on Pepper's birthday, Pepper will deny feeling nothing, just like Tony will deny tearing up, when they're told they're having a healthy baby boy.

* * *

End Part 3 of The Monkey Wrench Series

* * *

_Notes:_

_The first part of the chapter is actually what I originally wanted to do Post-Avengers, because what I wanted to do was make Anna's alternate version exist in the new timeline. But then I realized that it would probably incite a paradox and you guys would be like 'NO! THAT'S IMPOSSIBRU, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?' until I came up with a viable explanation and I just really don't have one for that scenario. Yet, anyway. So, ergo, thus, I decided: No Alternate!Anna included in the package._

_Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Thank you for your patience and enthusiasm,_

_~E_


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